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THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY 

WITH NOTES AND QUERIES 

Vol. V. MARCH, 1907 No. 3 



CONTENTS 

AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION . 

Ralph E. Prime, D. C. L. 125 
LETTERS OF WASHINGTON TO GEORGE AND JAMES 

CLINTON {Third Paper) 134 

THE HISTORY OF LOTTERIES IN NEW YORK {Second Paper) 

A. Franklin Ross 143 

NEW ENGLAND'S ANNOYANCES, {Poem, 1630) 153 

REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL GRANT (First Paper) . . . 

General Augustus L. Chetlain 155 

PUSH-MA-TA-HA, CHOCTAW WARRIOR . . . A. C. Chase 166 

MINOR TOPICS: 

Commodore Perry's Officers 170 

Ivincoln and Stephens 171 

The Story of the Iowa Public Archives 173 

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS: 

Letter of General Heath to Colonel Crafts 178 

Letter of General Joseph Reed to Colonel Archibald Lochry . . . . 175 

Letters of Colonel Crane, 1 781, Lieut. Com. Owen, 1863 . . . . 178 

Letter of Dr. David Ramsay to Dr. Morse 179 

Letter of Dr. William Eustis on General Wilkinson 179 

Letter of J. Fenimore Cooper to Joseph B. Bryce 179 

Letter of Lieut. Com. Geo. Upham Morris to Hawthorne . . . . 175 

Letter of Mrs. James Russell Lowell to Mrs. Hawthorne . . . . 180 

NOTES AND QUERIES: 

Antelopes for the Desert 181 

Beavers in Eastern Connecticut 181 

A Paris Political Squib, 1782 181 

THE DUTCHMAN'S FIRESIDE: Chapters XXIII-XXIV . . . . 

James K. Paulding 182 

Entered as Second-class matter, March i. 1905. at the Post Office at New York. N. Y., 
under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. 

Copyright, 1907, by William Abbatt. 



THE MAGAZINE OF HISTORY 

WITH NOTES AND QUERIES 

Vol. V MARCH, 1907 No. 3 

AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

NO man who ever knew Benjamin Franklin Stevens, who was 
for so many years the American Despatch Agent at London, 
but valued that acquaintance. Mr. Stevens was a rare man, 
and, notwithstanding his long residence in England, he was a thorough 
American and an intense lover of his country. He was born in Vermont 
in 1833,* and after a short experience at Montpelier, at Albany and at 
Washington, he was called to London to aid his brother, who had pre- 
ceded him to England. He became so useful to Americans that his 
merits were recognized, and in 1866 he was appointed Despatch Agent 
for the United States of America, resident at London, and continued 
to discharge his duties as such as long as he lived. He died in 1904. 

It was my privilege to make his acquaintance about ten years ago 
on one of my visits to London, and ever afterwards when I visited that 
city I enjoyed his fellowship, and looked forward to it as one of the 
pleasures of my vacation. 

Mr. Stevens' service extended over so many years of our national 
history, in its most stirring times, in which he must have been an actor, 
that his memory must have been stored with many incidents, intensely 
interesting, connected with the history of our country and yet unknown 
to written history. 

On one of my visits to England with my wife and daughters I 
spent nearly a week with Mr. Stevens and his wife in the George Hotel 
at Winchester. Sometimes together we were off in the daytime visiting 
things that Interested both of us, and then again he and I would be off 
in the daytime separately, each visiting something of interest to himself, 
and In the evenings we would sit together in the enclosed and covered 
garden and talk until late, while he entertained us with incidents which 

•See his Life, by George Manville Fenn, London, 1903, a most interesting book. — (Ed.). 
Copyrighted 1907 by Ralph E. Prinne. 

125 






126 AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

had happened during his residence in London. During that week he 
told me of many such events, in which he was an actor himself, which 
were of absorbing interest to me, and are utterly unknown to the mass 
of Americans, and have never been written, and which are probably 
even now unknown to any one connected with any recent administration 
of the national government. 

I have been invited to write, as nearly as I can recall, the statement 
which Mr. Stevens made to me concerning one of those incidents, and 
which, so far as memory serves me, I have never spoken of to exceed on 
four occasions. 

But to the appreciation of it by many of the generation since born, 
and who never learned much about its details, it will be necessary briefly 
to recall other things connected with the history of the Civil War, and 
there are many older persons who at the time were of mature years, but 
to whom, with the flight of time and the fullness of these later years, 
those events are at least very dim to recollection, and for them we will 
be excused if we to some extent recall some of the events of those days, 
and details which perhaps even they never knew. 

The great and detestable heresy of the right of a State to secede 
from the American Union probably had its birth in Massachusetts as 
early as the differences of 1808. Encouraged by the disloyal acts thus 
early of New England men, John C. Calhoun, native of South Carolina, 
and then Vice-President of the United States, in 1830 set forth his 
form of the heresy under the name of Nullification. Andrew Jackson, 
another Southern man, a native of the Carolinas, but a citizen of Ten- 
nessee, was then President of the United States, and to him the nation 
owes a like debt as to Abraham Lincoln, for Andrew Jackson, with the 
ardor and violence of his Southern nature, stamped out that crime with 
a remarkable proclamation, and by his even more remarkable threat 
that for the first overt act he would place John C. Calhoun, the great 
NuUifier, and Vice-President of the United States, behind bars. In 
November, i860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United 
States; and from that time, if not before, commenced preparation for 
secession of the Southern States from the Union, the greatest crime 
against our country which history records, and which then ripened, and 
in April, 1861, culminated in the first acts of overt resistance to law 
and authority in our great Civil War. 

The war was on. The Southern coast was effectually blockaded 



AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 1 27 

against the entry of ships into Southern ports, and the issue of ships 
from them, and the blockade was officially proclaimed to the world. 

For a long time before those events the subject of the abolition of 
privateering and treatment as pirates of vessels of war having letters 
of marque had occupied the attention of Great Britain, France, the United 
States and other nations. Negotiations toward an agreement to that 
end had extended over several years, and up to 1861 had not resulted 
in the adoption of that international rule. At that time, when the powers 
were all of one mind. Great Britain refused to enter into the agreement 
with the United States unless it was also agreed that it should not apply 
to the two belligerents in the American War then on. Thus, perhaps 
inferentially, but later in other clearer language, all in harmony with 
the desire of the shipbuilders and merchants of England, was there a 
recognition of the belligerency of the rebellious Southern States and a 
distinct position taken of unfriendliness to this country. These matters 
were publicly exploited in speeches delivered in the two houses of Par- 
liament and by the Ministers of the Queen in public addresses all over the 
Kingdom, and the position of the government on the questions, then 
acute, no doubt encouraged in their acts such of the English people who 
were of that mind, and also naturally resulted in supineness and care- 
lessness of public officials in the performance of the duties they owed 
to our country, then in fact and in law a friendly power. This was so 
much so that Mr. Laird, the builder of the Alabama, and a member of 
Parliament, in a speech in the House of Commons, found it easy, as he 
desired, to avow and defend his acts. Happily in the change of English 
sentiment toward us and ours toward them, such conditions have forever 
ceased and the results can never occur again. 

As early as October, 1861, Confederate agents contracted with the 
Laird Company for the building of a ship of war, afterward named the 
Alabama. Another firm contracted also to build another ship of war, 
the Florida. The Alabama was the larger vessel, and her building 
progressed more slowly. She was launched May 15, 1862, made her 
trial trip June 12, and on June 23, our Minister, Charles Francis Adams, 
called the attention of Lord Russell, the British Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs, to the character of the vessel. An examination was made, and 
the commissioners reported to the British Secretary that she was evi- 
dently a war vessel, and that the information given by Mr. Adams was 
correct. An order was given for her detention, but was so intentionally 
delayed in transmission that she was allowed to escape, and she was 



128 AN INCIDENT OF THK ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

actually manned oft the Welsh Coast with the full knowledge of the 
British officers at Liverpool. 

Practically the same is the story of the Florida and the Sumter, 
two other vessels. 

The funds for building them, for their armament and supplies, 
and for the money chests on board, as also for their subsequent supplies, 
was furnished at Liverpool and other British ports; of all of which our 
Minister apprised the British Secretary, who refused to interfere, al- 
leging want of proof, and took no steps to ascertain the facts for himself. 
He was, as early as March, 1863, apprised by Mr. Adams of what was 
going on, and that had called out from Lord Russell a letter, in which 
he stated clearly enough the duty of the British Government in the 
premises. 

Our own Navy was busy enough in its blockade of our Southern 
coast, and the Alabama and the other rebel craft had almost free course 
in all other waters, and preyed upon our merchant ships on all the seas, 
and also on the vessels of the Treasury, which were unarmed or only 
slightly so, and pursued their business of supplying the lighthouses, and 
other peaceful duties. 

The end of the depredations of these vessels was gradually accom- 
plished. The end of the Alabama was a great event of the Civil War. 
She came into the port of Cherbourg for supplies and repairs in June, 
1864. Our sloop of war the Kearsar^e, in command of Captain Wins- 
low, was in those water. Semmes, the commander of the Alabama, had 
long warred against defenseless merchant ships and could not afford 
to refuse battle now, for the first time forced upon him. The story of 
that fight ought to be well known to every American. It is sufficient 
for this paper that the Alabama was destroyed. 

The Treaty of Washington for the settlement of controversies be- 
tween the United States of America and the Kingdom of Great Britain 
was negotiated in March, April and May, 1871. The high commissioners 
comprised, on the part of the Llnited States, five well-known Americans, 
namely Hamilton Fish, then our Secretary of States; General Robert C. 
Schenck, then our Minister to the Court of St. James; Justice Samuel 
Nelson, then of the Supreme Court of the United States; Ebenezer 
Rockwood Hoar, of Massachusetts, and Senator George Henry Wil- 
liams, of Oregon; on the part of Great Britain, five of the best-known 



AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 1 29 

subjects of the Queen, namely the Earl of Grey and Ripen, at that 
time Lord President of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, 
&c., &c.; the Right Honorable Sir Stratford Henry Northcote, Baronet, 
one of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council; Sir Edward 
Thornton, Baronet, &c., then the Minister of Great Britain to the United 
States, Sir John A. MacDonald, the Canadian statesman, and Mr. Mon- 
tague Bernard, of Oxford University. After thirty-six conferences of 
these high commissioners, the convention or Treaty was concluded at 
Washington in May, 1871, and is known as the Treaty of Washington, 
and the ratifications were exchanged June 17, 1871. The Treaty pro- 
vided for the settlement of differences between the two governments, and 
principally the settlement of the claims generally known as the " Ahibama 
Claims." 

In its first Article it provided for the formation of a tribunal of 
arbitration, composed of five arbitrators. The second Article provided 
for the meeting of the tribunal at Geneva, in Switzerland. The third 
Article provided for the delivery in duplicate of a written or printed 
case of each of the two parties to each of the arbitrators, and to the 
agent of the other party, " as soon as may be after the organization of 
the tribunal, but within a period not exceeding six months from the date 
of the exchange of ratifications of this Treaty." The fourth Article 
provided that within four months after the delivery of such (7756' either 
party might in like manner deliver in duplicate to each of the arbitrators 
and to the agent of the other party a counter-case, and the second para- 
graph of that Article provided that the arbitrators might extend the time 
for the delivery of such counter-case when in their judgment it becomes 
necessary in consequence of the distance of the place from which the 
evidence to be presented is to be procured. 

The day of the week on which the ratifications were exchanged was 
Saturday, and, as stated, the seventeenth day of June, 1871. The six 
months mentioned in Article III would have ex-pired with the eighteenth 
day of December, 1871, which was Monday. 

While sitting together one of those evenings in Winchester, with 
Mr. Stevens, something suggested the Treaty of Washington and the 
Alabama claims arbitration, and he related to me the incident I am about 
to relate, and which I will attempt to recall as nearly as I can as Mr. 
Stevens told it, although after this lapse of time, nine years and more, 
I cannot pretend to give his exact words, and hence they must be mine, 
as nearly as I can repeat the story as he told it to me. 



130 AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

He had received, as the Agent for the American Government, a 
copy of the case of our government, and being the agent of the govern- 
ment for all such purposes, he was looking out for the arrival of the 
duplicate copies to be delivered to the British Government, and that was 
the reason why his attention was upon it. The last steamer which could 
have brought those copies for the British Government had arrived, and 
sufficient time had elapsed for bringing the package to him from Liver- 
pool, but no package had come. His interest in the matter, and his 
general interest in all that belonged to his people and his country, led 
him on that Saturday, December 16, 1871, to take a cab and drive to 
the office of General Schenck, the American Minister. He entered 
the office and soon saw General Schenck, and asked him if he 
had received the American case, to which the General replied, " Oh, 
yes; there it lies upon my table," pointing to it. " But," said Mr. 
Stevens, " have you received the duplicate copies to be delivered to the 
British Government?' Schenck replied that he had not. "Well," said 
Mr. Stevens, " I think I will drive to the British Foreign Office and see 
if they have been sent there direct." Whereupon he left the Embassy, 
drove to Downing Street and to the Foreign Office and soon had an 
audience with the Secretary, of whom he inquired, had he received the 
copies of the American case pursuant to the Treaty of Washington. He 
was told that they had not been received. " Well," said Mr. Stevens, 
" I suppose that you will extend the time in case they do not come?" 
" Oh, no," said the British Secretary, " there is no provision in the 
Treaty for the extending of the time for the service by either party of 
their case, but there is a provision in the Treaty for extending the time 
for service of the counter-case, and I am bound to suppose that the 
learned and distinguished representatives of both countries in drafting 
that convention or treaty had the best of reasons for making a difference 
of provision in the one case from the other, and for using different 
language as to one act to be done, than as to the other act to be done, 
and that by so saying that the time might be extended for the delivery of 
the counter-case they meant it, and by not saying so as to the time within 
which the case itself was to be delivered, they consequently meant that 
there should not be any extension of time." Mr. Stevens asked: " What 
will be the result in case you do not receive the case within the limited 
time? " The Secretary replied: " There is but one result that can follow, 
and that is that the failure to deliver the case within the stipulated time 
is an abandonment of the provisions of the Treaty by the government 
that fails of compliance with that provision of the Treaty." After the 



AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 131 

exchange of proper courtesies Mr. Stevens left him, and drove hurriedly 
back to the i\merican Embassy, and was again in the presence of General 
Schenck, to whom he related what had transpired between himself and 
the Secretary. " Well," said General Schenck, " it is none of your 
business and none of mine; neither you nor I have failed in any duty; 
the responsibility must rest where it belongs — upon those who have 
failed in the performance of their duty." " But," said Mr. Stevens, 
"will you do nothing?" To which Schenck replied, "Nothing." Mr. 
Stevens then said " Will you lend me your copy of the case? " " No," 
said General Schenck, " you have your copy, and this copy belongs in the 
archives of the Embassy." " Well," said Mr. Stevens, " suppose it is 
missing, what then? " " Oh," said the General, " I do not think it will 
matter much; I do not think I will take any notice of it if it is missing." 
Whereupon Mr. Stevens quietly backed to the table upon which the 
document lay, and passed his hands behind him and took the thin book 
(less than one inch in thickness), and slipped it into the skirt pocket of 
his coat, and quietly bade General Schenck " Good-morning " and again 
took a street cab. Said he to me: "I knew that my printer had a new 
font of type, which, as nearly as I could judge, was such a counterpart 
of the type from which the American case had been printed, a copy of 
which I had, that no one but an expert printer would be able to dis- 
tinguish between the two fonts. It was Saturday, and nearly noon, and 
the beginning of the customary Saturday half-holiday approached. Ar- 
riving at the printer's office I observed the typesetters all coming down- 
stairs, and I accosted them, asking where they were going, to which I 
received a reply that it was the Saturday half-holiday and the 12 o'clock 
hour was striking; and I shouted to the line, " A shilling a day extra to 
each one of you who will return to his case." The line turned back. 
Mr. Stevens, as he said, entered the foreman's room and produced 
General Schenck's copy of the case and also his own copy, and said 
to the foreman : " You have a new font of type, I know, from which 
you can reproduce this book, and I want to have it reproduced by Mon- 
day morning early. It must be done, although to-morrow is Sunday, 
for great issues hang upon it." " But," said the foreman, " it cannot 
be done; this is Saturday half-holiday this afternoon, and all of the 
typesetters are gone by this time." " Oh, no," said Mr. Stevens; " I 
have met them on the stairs and promised them a shilling a day apiece 
for every man who would return to his case, and they hav^e all gone 
back." " Well," said the foreman, " if that is so, it can be done." 
Mr. Stevens and he took the two copies of the case and tore them 



132 AN INCIDKNT OF TIIK ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

apart, they were distributed to the compositors, and Mr. Stevens left 
the office with the assurance that the job would be done and 100 copies 
of it printed in sheets by Monday morning at nine o'clock. Mr. Stevens, 
leaving, took with him the single lithograph print contained in the book 
(it was a rough map of our Southern coast, the Gulf of Mexico and 
the islands — the Antilles and the Bahamas), drove at once to a litho- 
grapher's and made the same arrangements with him to have a hundred 
copies of the lithograph plate ready at the same time on Monday morn- 
ing. He then drove to a case-maker and binder, made the same ar- 
rangements to have a hundred cases ready in which to insert the book 
on Monday morning at nine o'clock, and then he went home assured 
that he controlled the situation. On that Monday morning, at the hour 
appointed, he appeared at the printer's office and took into his hands 
the sheets of the copies printed complete (even to the typographical 
errors in the original copies), and drove to the lithographer's, where he 
secured the copies of the lithograph print, and with the whole drove 
to the case-maker's, where he deposited his load. Four copies of the 
work were " assembled," and, as well as time permitted, stitched and 
put into four cases, and Mr. Stevens with them drove to Downing Street 
and to the office of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and delivered, 
before 12 o'clock of that day, the last day pursuant to the Treaty, two 
copies of the American case to Lord Tenterden, the Under Secretary, 
who had been named as the British Agent. He then drove to General 
Schenck's office and returned to him one of the other copies reproduced 
in the place of the one which he had taken on the previous Saturday, 
and told General Schenck the story of what he had done. 

" Well," said I, " Mr. Stevens, that is a most interesting and won- 
derful story. Of course it has been told and gone well into history?" 
" No," said he, " never, save to a few persons, and you are one of that 
few, and it must never go into print as long as I live." " And," said 
I, " of course the United States Government repaid you the expense of 
what you had done?" To which he replied: " Never a cent of it." I 
said: "Why, what do you mean?" Said he: "I never presented any 
bill or claim for it. The fact is that before Parliament assembled that 
evening the news of the service of the American case on the British 
Government was well known to many, and the next day I was called upon 
by many, to obtain copies of it, and I sold to members of Parliament 
for a pound apiece every copy that I had to spare, and I realized more 



AN INCIDENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 



133 



than enough to cover the expenditure." " Well," said I, " how do 
you account for the failure of the Washington authorities to comply 
with the terms of the Treaty? " " Oh," said he, " when the next steamer 
arrived the bundle came. Instead of committing so important a matter 
to the hands of a special messenger to bring it across the Atlantic, or 
sending the number of necessary copies at the time that a single copy 
was sent to General Schenck and a single copy was sent to me, the bundle 
was entrusted to the custody of an express company, and as it was thought, 
in time for the last steamer; but the express messenger, knowing nothing 
of the importance of the package, treated it like any other, and it reached 
New York after the steamer had sailed." 

To understand the importance of the act performed by Mr. Stevens, 
we must remember that it saved the arbitration at Geneva to us, and 
that the award of that tribunal to America for the depredations of the 
Alabama, the Sumter and the other Rebel vessels was a round sum of 
$15,500,000. 

Ralph E. Prime. 

YONKERS, N. Y. 



(Anyone who has not already read Admiral Smith's article in our January number, ought 
to read it, while Colonel Prime's story is fresh in his mind. — Ed.). 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 763 144 1 



LETTERS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON TO GEORGE 
AND JAMES CLINTON. 

XVI 

WASHINGTON TO GENERAL CLINTON, JUNE 2, 1 779 

Two page quarto. Washington realized the importance of this war 
on the frontier, but had to leave its direction practically entirely to the two 
generals in charge. The right wing, under Clinton, went up the valley of 
the Mohawk as far as Canajoharie, then turning southwest; while Sulli- 
van took the left wing up the Susqeuhanna. At the date of this letter 
Washington was not sure of Clinton's plans. 

" Dear Sir, I have to acknowledge your favour of the 23d May. 

The taking of two light three pounders in place of the artillery of the brigade, 
as you' propose will depend entirely on the place of your junction with General 
Sullivan. If on the Susquehannah there will be no necessity to carry any artillery 
whatsoever, as General Sullivan has made adequate provision. If the other route 
is determined on I have no objection to your moving with these two pieces. 

I do not conceive much danger from letting the mortar remain in Albany. 
Should I find that it can be employed I shall give orders on the subject. 

If Major Wright and the officers you mention have behaved up to the spirit 
of their parole ; and there are no reasons to suspect them ; it might be as well to con- 
tinue their indulgence. — But should it be otherwise you will have them properly 
restricted." 



Entirely unpublished. 



XVII 



V^^ASHINGTON TO GENERAL CLINTON, JUNE ID, 1 779 

Two page folio. This letter from Smith's Clove continues Washing- 
ton's suggestions contained in his preceding letter in connection with the 
junction of Clinton's forces with those of General Sullivan. The letter, 
excepting Washington's own signature, is entirely in the autograph of 
Alexander Hamilton. The letter retains Washington's seal. 

134 



